"If Bessmer would only close the bedroom door," whispered Helen, "we should be quite safe." At this moment the maid did close the door; Helen gave a sigh of relief. "I never could whisper well," she said. "Only cat-women whisper nicely. Isabel is a cat-woman. Now when it comes to a murmur—a faint, clear, sweet murmur, I am an adept. I wonder if Isabel will subdue her widower? You have been here long enough to have an opinion. Will she?"
"I do not know," said Anne, wondering at her own ability to speak the words.
"And I—do not care! I am tired, Crystal: may I lie on your bed? Do close that deathly window, and come over here, so that we can talk comfortably," said Helen, throwing herself down on the white coverlet—a long slender shape, with its white arms clasped under its head. The small room was in shadow. Anne drew a chair to the bedside and sat down, with her back to the moonlight.
"This is a miserable world," began Mrs. Lorrington. Her companion, sitting with folded arms and downcast eyes, mentally agreed with her.
"Of course you do not think so," continued Helen, "and perhaps, being such a crystal-innocent, you will never find it out. There are such souls. There are also others; and it is quite decided that I hate—Rachel Bannert, who is one of them."
Anne had moved nervously, but at that name she fell back into stillness again.
"Rachel is the kind of woman I dread more than any other," continued Helen. "Her strength is feeling. Feeling! I tell you, Crystal, that you and I are capable of loving, and suffering for the one we love, through long years of pain, where Rachel would not wet the sole of her slipper. Yet men believe in her! The truth is, men are fools: one sigh deceives them."
"Then sigh," said the figure in the chair.
